New measures to help young couples

New measures to help young couples

The Housing and Development Board (HDB) is offering two new measures to help young couples get their flats earlier, said HDB in a statement on Wednesday.

The first measure is Build-To-Order (BTO) flats with shorter waiting times. The new BTO projects with a 2.5 year waiting time will be in Sembawang, Yishun and Sengkang. These flats will be launched for sale in the second half of 2018. Upcoming

HDB said that, to reduce waiting time for young couples buying their first homes, it will begin constructing these projects ahead of their sales launch.

A tender for the construction of the first batch of 1,000 flats will be called this month, with construction expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, said HDB.

“Flat buyers can look forward to the flats completing between 4th quarter 2020 and 1st quarter 2021 – about 2.5 years from the time they apply for the purchase of the flats, instead of the typical waiting time of about three to four years for standard BTO projects,” added the statement.

The flats will come with floor finishes, internal doors, and sanitary fittings, which will help to reduce the need for renovation, thus enabling buyers to move in sooner.

The second measure to help first-time home buyers is a new sales mode beginning in August 2017 known as the “Re-Offer of Balance Flats” exercise (ROF). This exercise will be held twice a year.

The exercise will pool together all flats that remain unsold at the conclusion of the previous Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise.

HDB said it will offer 1,394 units of unsold balance flats from the Nov 2016 SBF exercise. “HDB will set aside at least 95 per cent of the flat supply for first-timer families and up to 5 per cent for second-timer families,” said the statement.